Just Crash Here
by Mad Maudlin
Summary: He'd never quite understood what 'in vino veritas' meant until just now. RHr


Just Crash Here

by Mad Maudlin

for the Ron/Hermione FQF

In the dim confines of a grubby kitchen thick with the scent of butterbeer and curry, four red heads were bent studiously over a long sheet of closely-written parchment. "One cake," a voice read out earnestly, "thirteen pizzas, a keg of beer, a gallon of firewhiskey, assorted mixers, three gross of balloons, half a mile of streamers, a half-dozen blindfolds, fifty Preposterous Poppers, one goat, one bottle chili peppers, six pounds of feathers, one stripper—"

"Hold it." Ron reached out and stilled the quill that had been checking off each item as it went. "I thought we agreed no stripper?"

"We didn't agree to anything.

"I said no stripper."

George snorted. "Come on, it's not a proper bachelor party without a stripper."

"Ginny will kill us."

Fred rolled his eyes. "It's just some harmless lechery!"

_"Mum_ will kill us."

"You planning to tell her, are you?"

"We are not getting a stripper for Harry's bachelor party!"

The twins looked across the table in unison. "Bill!"

Bill shrugged and sipped his beer. "The best man has spoken," he said, inspiring in Ron a tiny rush of thoroughly immature pride. "He's the one taking the fall for it, after all, if anyone _does_ find out."

George threw down the scroll in disgust. "I reckon you're going to tell us we can't have the goat either, eh?"

"If I knew what it was for, then probably yes," Ron grumbled, trying to remember why he'd asked for their help in the first place. This best man business had sounded so simple when Harry and Ginny had originally asked him, and he hadn't look far beyond the honor of the role—and a certain bushy-haired maid of honor. He hadn't considered how much work it would be or how absolutely mad women got over weddings. Goats had certainly never entered the equation.

A sudden knock on the front door caused all four of them to start; Bill upset his drink, and George tried frantically to save the curries while Fred stuffed the list out of sight. "What the hell?" Ron blurted. "Who's that?"

"I take it you're not expecting anyone?" Bill asked, dabbing half-heartedly at the puddle on the table.

"Dad took Harry to the battery shop, and Hermione and Ginny are at that girl...party...thing."

Fred snorted. "And that exhausts your list of potential social callers?"

Ron glared and crossed to the front door in three long strides. "Don't let them in!" George hissed. "We've got incriminating evidence here!"

"I'm just looking—" He pressed his face against the peephole and squinted until the weirdly distorted faces came into focus. Then he pulled away, blinked a few times, and looked again. When he was sure he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing, he fumbled with the lock and said, "Bloody buggering hell."

"What is it?" Bill asked, coming to stand behind him.

Ron threw open the door, and into his flat marched the most peculiar pair of people he could've imagined on such short notice: his sister-in-law and Luna Lovegood, carrying what appeared to be a lumpy sort of sack slung over their shoulders. "Fleur," Bill said, "what're you doing here, love?"

"Yeah," Ron said quickly, "I thought you two went with Ginny to the thingy?"

"We did," Fleur sniffed, looking supremely offended, though that was really a default expression for her so Ron wasn't sure if it was a deeper offense than usual. "She asked us to take 'er 'ome early."

"Take who home?" Ron asked. Luna blinked and looked at the sack, then shrugged.

The sack raised its head and grinned hugely at them. "Hi, Won-Won!"

All the blood drained from Ron's face as he recognized Hermione's flushed face. She seemed to be having supreme trouble keeping her eyes fixed on him, and wobbled dangerously when Fleur tried to dislodge the arm slung around her neck. "H-hermione," he croaked. "What—huh?"

"Wanna talk to you." She staggered forward, nearly knocking Luna from her feet, and coming precariously close to falling herself; Ron caught her at the last minute and steadied her. Hermione giggled—_giggled,_ for chrissake—and sagged against his chest. "Mmm. You smell like curry."

To complete the picture, Fred and George stuck their heads out of the kitchen and blinked at the little tableau. "Hello," George said. "What's all this?"

"Is Little Miss Perfect feeling quite all right?"

"Doesn't look at all well to me."

"'Course not, she's cuddling Ronnikins."

"Oi, knock it off," Bill said sharply, while Ron tried to hide his deepening flush in Hermione's volume of hair. She twined her arms around his neck and settled most of her weight against him. "Fleur, what happened to her?"

"Ginny suggested we play a, a—'ow do you say—"

"Drinking game," Luna supplied.

"Yes," Fleur sniffed, "a 'orrible little game, a lady does not discuss such things in public—"

"Wait," George said, "Hermione was playing a pervy drinking game?"

Luna nodded. "I don't think she was very good at it, though. She wouldn't answer any of the questions."

"I play to lose!" Hermione declared. The twins grinned like Christmas had come early.

Ron quickly disentangled himself from Hermione and steered her to the sofa, where she collapsed like a sack of bricks. This was whole new dimension of wedding-induced unreasonable behavior. "What'd you bring her here for?" he asked, just barely suppressing a whine. "Why didn't you take her home?"

"We tried," Luna said. "She insisted she had to see you."

"I cannot imagine _why,"_ Fleur said in a tone that Ron considered unnecessarily harsh.

"Really?" Bill said with a bit of a raised eyebrow. "'Cause I've got an idea or two, personally."

"Wanna _talk,"_ Hermione said again, and tugged his wrist weakly.

"You are talking," Ron said, probably harsher than he should've. "What's the matter?"

She giggled again. "Wanna talk _aloooone,"_ she said, and tipped slowly over after he tugged his wrist away.

Fred cleared his throat loudly. "Sounds like our cue to leave, don't you think, George?"

"Oh yes," George said, "that would be a cue if ever I heard one."

"Hold on," Ron said. "What d'you mean, cue?"

"The lady wants some privacy," Fred said airily as he pulled on his cloak. "Reckon we should provide it, shouldn't we?"

"It's the gentlemanly thing," George added; tossing Bill his cloak.

"Since when were you gentlemen?"

Bill cleared his throat with another one of those raised-eyebrow looks that completely failed to communicate anything to Ron—at least, anything he wanted to hear. "It's not that hard to pick up where you left off, is it?" he asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"With the party, I mean," Bill said, all innocence.

Ron was not amused. "Of course we can, but—" He looked at Hermione, who seemed to be having trouble pushing herself upright. "What am I supposed to do with her?"

The twins both snickered loudly. "Come on, Ronnikins—"

"—even _you_ aren't that naïve—"

"—though it would explain—"

"—a couple of things—"

"Weren't you two just talking about being gentlemanly?" Bill asked, while Ron turned slowly purple.

George put up his hands. "Come on, Bill, there's a difference between gentlemanly and _dead_."

"I am not going to—_take advantage_ of her!" Ron said. "That's appalling!"

Luna blinked at him. "I don't think she'd mind, though."

"Of course I wouldn't," Hermione said.

There was a moment of profound silence.

Bill smirked, fastened his cloak and took Fleur's arm. "Now that," he said, "is what I call a cue."

"Good night, Ronnikins," Fred said jauntily.

"Good luck," George added with a wink.

"Wait just a bloody minute!" Ron shouted. "You're not leaving us—I mean her—I mean—" He glanced at Hermione's vacant smile from the sofa— "what am I supposed to _do?"_

Bill and Fleur slipped out the front door. "You could always try being a gentleman," he called over his shoulder. Ron's jaw worked silently at their backs. Fred and George each offered Luna an arm; she took them both, and they marched down the hall side-by-side-by-side.

"Night, 'Won-won,'" George said warmly.

"Don't do anything we wouldn't do—"

"—but at least try a couple things we would."

Luna added, "Watch out for Petchariskinis. They're very contagious."

"Is that so, Miss Lovegood?" George asked.

"You'll have to tell us more," Fred said.

"And while you're at it—"

"—what precisely was this game that Hermione lost?"

"Well," Luna said, "the questions were mostly about love..."

And then they were gone.

"Are you gonna close the door?" Hermione slurred after a few minutes.

Ron shook his head and kicked the door shut, contemplating fratricide. "D'you want a drink of water?" he asked her; might as well try to head off the hangover now, it would save him a dose of potion in the morning.

"No," she said with something like a pout—a bloody pout. "Wanna _talk_ to you."

It figured she'd still be as stubborn as ever. Ron rubbed his face and sat down on the couch, as far away from her as he could get (purely in the interests of being a gentleman). "All right. So talk."

She stared at him for so long he wondered if he had something on his face. No, wait, the twins would've said something about that. He wondered if she'd already forgotten what she wanted to talk about. No, wait, he wasn't that lucky...

"Where's your girlfriend?" Hermione suddenly blurted.

_"What?"_

"Where," she said, with her eyes slipping sideways, "is your girlfriend?"

"Hermione, I haven't _got_ a girlfriend."

"Exactly."

Ron sighed. Of course—not only was she still stubborn, she was still smarter than him. "Could you explain that one in English for me?"

She reached over and poked him in the chest, rather harder than he though strictly necessary. "Why," poke, "don't," poke, "you," poke, "have," poke, "a," poke, "girlfriend?"

He batted her hand away before she could poke him anymore. "It's none of your business," he said.

"Yes it is."

"No, it's not."

"Is _too."_

Under other circumstances—say, ones not involving questions about his love life—the look on her face might've been cute. "Why do you want to know so much?" he asked, scooting even further down the couch than he'd thought possible. This seemed to throw her off for a moment, and she frowned deeply. When she didn't say anything for a full three minutes, he got to his feet. "I'll just get you a glass of water while you think about it, yes?"

She blinked. "Water?"

"Yes," he said, "water."

"What water?"

"The water out of the tap," he said, "because you're going to have a brutal hangover in the morning."

This shift in the conversation seemed to be too much for her to handle in her current state, so Ron just went into the kitchen anyway, and began to tidy up. He should've expected something like this, he decided as he cleared the table. Weddings made girls mad; he'd seen that for himself at the last one they'd all attended. Of course, a drunken and inquisitive Hermione wasn't a form of madness he'd anticipated.

Especially when she was the answer to her own bloody question.

Ron cursed as tried in vain to squash down the teetering pile of rubbish flowing out of the bin. No, it wasn't fair to say it was Hermione's fault—she hadn't done anything. Which was sort of the reason why it actually was her fault. No, no, no—this wasn't about Hermione at all. This was about him being too busy for a girlfriend, about not wanting Harry's sloppy seconds or reflected glory, about not going out and getting himself a girl because he was waiting for—that is, he was looking for someone with more—who was more like—

So perhaps it really was all about Hermione. Bollocks.

But it wasn't like there was anything he could do about it. Well, okay, there were lots of things he could do about it. He just wasn't sure he _wanted_ to do any of them. Hermione, for her part hadn't said or done anything since the debacle at Bill and Fleur's wedding, hadn't even hinted one way or the other as to what she thought or felt. For his part, it seemed like every time he'd ever tried to do something about it on his own she'd ended up screaming at him, and occasionally assaulting him with birds. It wasn't like he'd never deserved it—in fact more often than not he had—but at some point he supposed he had to ask the question of whether it was even worth it anymore. Though they hadn't rowed like that in years—since the wedding incident things had been...well...okay. They didn't scream nearly as much but they still talked almost as often, he pretended not to care and she seemed not to mind. But there was always a part of him still holding out hope that if he didn't start another Lavender-type fiasco, if he was just patient enough, then one day Hermione would just walk up to him and say—

"You shouldn' stick your foot in th' rubbish bin."

Ron jumped and spun around, or tried to, but his foot didn't quite come clear of the pile of take-away cartons he'd been crushing. He knocked the whole thing to floor, where he promptly fell over it. Hermione, swaying gently in the doorway, giggled and said, "Told you so."

He kicked away the bin and the spray of curry boxes and clambered to his feet. "What d'you want?" he snapped.

She scowled. "You said you were getting me water."

Oh, right. "Right." Ron picked his way to the sink, found a mostly-clean glass on the draining board, and started to fill it from the tap. "Though I reckon at this point you could drink down half the North Sea and it wouldn't really help—hey!"

Because she had suddenly wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her face against his back, nuzzling a bit too warmly between his shoulderblades. "You smell good," she told him.

He licked his lips and reminded himself she was drunk off her arse. This was not any sort of invitation. He was supposed to be the gentleman. "You said earlier that I smelled like curry," he pointed out.

"I like curry."

"No, you don't."

"I don't?"

Water gushed over Ron's knuckles; he quickly shut off the tap and, with a great deal of wiggling, turned around without pitching Hermione to the floor. "Here," he said. "Water. And you hate curry."

She wrapped bother hands around the glass and took an exaggerated sip. Then she frowned. "Is this glass clean?"

"Mostly," he said.

She took another sip then said, "You didn't answer my question."

"You didn't answer mine."

"Oh. Yeah."

Ron decided it was an appropriate time for Hermione to stand up straight, or perhaps sit down, or at least stop leaning against him in this particular friendly way. He tried to scoot sideways. She put her head on his chest and slopped a little water down his front. "Hermione?" he asked warily, taking away the glass.

"Viktor's getting married," she said.

"What?"

She sounded like she was announcing the untimely death of a not-particularly-close relative who was nevertheless regarded, if not affectionately, then at least without active dislike. "Viktor's getting married," she said again. "He sent me an invitation."

"I see," Ron said, and began to fear he did.

"Her name is Helga."

"That's lovely," he mumbled.

"She's very blonde."

"And what's it got to do with me?"

Hermione looked up at him, eyes very wide and vulnerable-looking, but Ron already knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say. "Wanchu go t' Bulgaria with me," she said.

"Why?"

"You don't have a girlfriend."

She made it sound so obvious, like a bloody forgone conclusion or something—Ron steered her to a chair and put the glass in front of her. "Drink up."

Hermione stared into the glass for several minutes. "You're cross."

"You're drunk," he snapped back. "And I don't want to deal with your hangover in the morning."

She pouted again. "I was just asking."

"And I'm saying no. Now finish your water."

She pushed the glass away and folded her arms. "Why are you so grumpy?"

Ron took a deep breath. He didn't want to shout at her; she was too drunk to appreciate it anyway. "I'm not grumpy," he said. "I just don't want to go with you to your boyfriend's wedding, is all."

Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment she resembled her formidable sober self. "Viktor 's_not_ my boyfriend," she snapped. "You're jus' jealous."

He snorted. "Of _what?"_

"You are!" Hermione wobbled to her feet and shook an unsteady finger at him. "You're jealous! An' you're grumpy, an' you're mean, an' you're...you're..."

"An ogre with the emotional maturity of a sack of hammers and less intellect than God gave a dormouse?"

It was the same accusation she'd flung at him at the wedding reception two summers past; he surprised himself with the accuracy of his memory. "Oh," she said archly. "Oh ho. Then I s'pose _I'm_ still a frigid bitch who thinks she's smarter than anyone else alive?"

Clearly he wasn't the only one with a good memory of that row. Ron felt his stomach twist with a lingering sort of shame, but it wasn't quite enough to stop him saying, "No, but you're a bloody fool if you think I'm going to jump up and down for the honor of being your last resort."

Hermione blinked, and then her face screwed up horribly; Ron wondered for a moment if she were going to burst into tears. But she screamed, a blood-curdling screech so loud it was a wonder it didn't wake the neighbors. "You bastard!" she shouted. "You're impossible! You're immature an' you're ignorant an' you're infuriating an'—" She stumbled forward and tried to shove him in the chest; he grabbed her by the wrists and held her there. "—an' you're _mean,_ an' I'm sick of listening to you and I'm sick of talking to you and I'm sick of waiting for you!"

"Waiting for what?" he asked. She wrenched her arms away and nearly toppled over for her efforts.

"Waiting for anything!" she shouted back.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know!" she shrieked, then promptly sat down on the floor and threw up.

Ron leapt up to his feet and swore for a moment before grabbing Hermione by the arm and hauling her to the toilet, just in time for the second wave. He gathered her hair away from her face while she clung to the bowl and retched; by the time she fumbled for the chain and flushed, he had a glass of water, a damp cloth, and a packet of Toothflossing Stringmints lined up on the edge of the sink. "You picked a wonderful time to start drinking, you know," he informed her, passing her the washcloth.

She wiped her face, then stuck her tongue out at him. He gave her the packet of mints anyway, and helped her open them when she couldn't seem to work out the little notch cut into the wrapper. Once she had stuffed the mints in her mouth, she leaned against the edge of the bathtub and began to chew; Ron settled himself against the corner of the doorframe and watched her, thinking about what she'd said just before she started to puke.

After the row they'd had at Bill and Fleur's wedding—and he couldn't recall for the life of him what it had been about, originally, only that it had been very public and unnecessarily savage—they had intiated an awkward détente. Harry had had a mission to complete, and they'd promised to help him, and that meant they had to be able to work with one another without the risk of explosion. And, while they'd had to, they had. But the whole time he'd been waiting, more than half hopeful, for Hermione to say something, anything—to get one direct and unambiguous sign that she wanted to make another go at the way things had been. Or, rather, at the way things could have been, or the way things had almost been—he wasn't sure what he wanted anymore but it certainly wasn't this.

And for all this time, had she been waiting on _him?_

Hermione slumped and leaned her head against the tub. "Tired," she announced.

"Think you can make it to the bedroom by yourself?" he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice even. The post-blow-up dance was familiar; they'd had two years' practice.

Hermione appeared to think about the question for a minute. "Nuh-uh."

Ron stood up, pulled Hermione to her feet and wrapped one of her arms around his waist; she was too short to reach his neck comfortably. She leaned into his side as he did most of the steering, past the kitchen (which was going to be foul in the morning) and into his bedroom, which he suspected he hadn't tidied up since summer. He tried to settle her down on the bed; she suddenly got a grip on his jumper and dragged him down with her by sheer force of weight. Ron landed awkwardly on his side with his legs dangling off the bed and one arm pinned underneath himself, and Hermione cuddled up against him and shut her eyes with a contented little sigh. "Hermione?" he asked warily.

"Mmmm?"

"Can you let go of me?"

"Nnn-nnnn"

Ron gritted his teeth and wiggled away, at least enough to situate himself properly with respect to the mattress. Hermione whimpered and scrambled after him without even opening her eyes, and once he stopped moving she immediately sprawled herself across his chest and snuggled up close. It wasn't perhaps the most gentlemanly position to be in, even fully dressed, and Ron told himself several times to get up and go clean the kitchen and get ready to spend the night on the couch—in just a minute.

Except that minute stretched into five, into ten, and instead of leaving Ron found himself fumbling for a place to put his hands that, even if it wouldn't be particularly gentlemanly, also wouldn't cross the line to "totally inappropriate." He settled for one on the back of her neck, or rather, on the pile of her hair on the back of her neck. It was wilder than usual but still soft and thick as ever, and he was fairly certain he'd have to mount a full expedition to find the skin beneath it.

"Why didn't we ever date?" Hermione suddenly asked, and Ron jumped.

"What d'you mean?" he asked.

"Why didn't we ever date _for real?"_ she asked.

Ron shrugged, jostling her a bit. "You know," he said vaguely, "Harry."

"Oh. Yeah."

A long pause, during which Ron pondered the location of his other hand, which was separated from Hermione's by about half an inch of blanket at the tip of his thumb.

"Harry doesn't need us anymore, though," Hermione said.

"Harry's always going to need us," Ron said.

"He's got Ginny, now."

Right. Harry had Ginny—and the war was over. The situation had changed. Ron hesitantly moved his thumb until it just barely stroked Hermione's fingers. Everything had changed—they were real adults now, not just of age, they had jobs, they had flats, things were different...

But were they different enough?

He opened his mouth to ask he what was on her mind, but somehow the words got mixed up and came out, "Why were you so mad at me at the wedding?"

Hermione's eyes opened and she looked at him blearily. "Eh?"

"At Bill's wedding," he said. This was dangerous ground—the usual rules of the argument game called for them to forgive and pretend to forget, or better yet, pretend nothing had ever even happened in the first place. "What were you so angry about?"

Hermione blinked for a few minutes as if barges were executing three-point turns in her brain, and then said, "Oh." She lowered her head to his chest again but ducked to down so he couldn't see her face. "Jealous."

"What?"

"You were leering at all the part-Veela girls," she said. "Fleur's family."

"I couldn't exactly help that, they were ganging up on me..."

"I wanted you to leer at me."

Ron blinked. He'd never quite understood what _in vino veritas_ meant until just now. "You called me an ogre...because I _wasn't_ leering at you?"

"Mmm." Hermione suddenly curled her fingers into his belt, which wasn't exactly crossing any lines of gentlemanliness but still made him hyperaware of the press of her knuckles through his jeans. "Why did you call me a bitch?"

He sighed. "Because I don't understand you."

There was a long silence, and then Hermione said, "Ron?"

"Hmm?"

"Harry's getting married."

"I know that."

"So is Viktor."

"I know that, too."

"We're all grown up."

It seemed like something massively important was happening here, something that could change everything—not in the way that ten months of slogging the length and breath of England to blow up antiques had changed everything, but the way getting up the gumption to take a certain train seat had changed _everything_. "Hermione," he said, "let's talk about this when you're sober, okay?"

"Wanna talk now," she said.

"You're still drunk."

She looked up at him, eyes steadier than they had been all evening. "You're mean," she said as blandly as if she were describing the weather.

"You're confusing," he told her just as plainly.

She looked down. "Don't mean to be."

"Me neither."

"I just want you t' go t' Bulgaria with me," she said, and now she was rubbing her knuckles back and forth against his hip. "An' see how it goes."

He thought about their track record with formal occasions. "Sure," he said, "let's see how it goes." _And cross all our fingers and hope for the best._

But her slow sleepy smile was too brilliant to puncture right then. "Love you," she said, and snuggled back into the crook of his arm. Within a couple of minutes, she started to snore.

Ron gently pulled her hand out of his belt and just held it for a moment in his. He might as well enjoy this while it lasted.


End file.
